Sheng Yang He, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute-Moore Foundation Plant Biology Investigator at Michigan State University, has received $900,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation to learn more about how plants’ molecular gates close and alert defenses for battling diseases.
With this knowledge, the investigators will define the principle components that plants use to monitor their environments for potential threats and to rapidly respond to them.
"The ultimate goal of this research is to uncover mechanisms that plants use to survive," said He. "We want to know how plants and bacterial pathogens battle to take control of stomata closure and opening, with an emphasis on the role of plants’ actin molecules, which form intracellular cables inside plant cells."
This new funding extends He's foundation-supported work to understand how jasmonate plants thwart pests, diseases and the effects of climate change.
Answering these basic questions reveals mechanisms for the most vital biological functions, such as how genes are turned on and off. These behaviors are similar across plants, animals and humans.
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